On Labour Day in Antigua and Barbuda, United Progressive Party (UPP) Leader and opposition head Jamale Pringle delivered a keynote address to crowds gathered at the Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union (ABWU) rally, centering his remarks on honoring working people and pushing for cross-group unity to drive national progress. Opening his speech with formal greetings to the union’s executive branch, president, and general secretary, Pringle first extended his sincere praise to all members and organizers who dedicate their time and effort to sustain the union’s operations in service of the working class. Pringle emphasized that Labour Day carries far deeper meaning than a simple day off from work. He framed the annual observance as a living tribute to the generations of effort and sacrifice that workers across every sector of the country have poured into national growth. “Labour Day is not just a holiday. It is a celebration of dedication, skill, and the countless hours that keep our industries, businesses, and neighborhoods thriving,” he told the gathered crowd. Going beyond purely economic contributions, Pringle highlighted the far-reaching social impact of working people’s daily labor. He noted that workers’ effort does more than boost national output—it lays the foundation for strong families, nurtures individual and collective dreams, and builds the long-term future of Antigua and Barbuda. In his remarks, Pringle also acknowledged the persistent daily challenges that working people across the country face, while commending their consistent resilience in navigating and overcoming those barriers. A core policy-focused point of his address centered on workplace justice, with the UPP leader stressing that fair, respectful treatment must be non-negotiable for every worker. “Every worker deserves respect, fair treatment, and opportunity,” he stated, reaffirming his party’s commitment to advancing worker rights. The central throughline of Pringle’s speech was a urgent call for national unity, framing collective action as the only sustainable path toward meaningful national progress. “Progress is made together… we have to be united,” he told attendees, urging workers, union members, and political allies to align around shared goals for national development. Closing his address, Pringle reiterated unwavering solidarity between his party, the national labor movement, and all working people, closing with three rousing declarations of support: “Long live the United Progressive Party. Long live the working class. Long live the Antigua Barbuda Workers Union.”
分类： politics
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PM Orders Back Pay to Be Cleared: ‘Every Single Worker Must Be Paid’
Fresh off his administration’s return to power following the April 30 general election, Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda has delivered a forceful mandate to public sector leadership: clear all lingering back pay owed to public workers immediately, with no further delays or excuses.
Speaking at the annual Labour Day rally jointly hosted by the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (AT&LU) and the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, Browne centered his address on upholding labor rights and fulfilling commitments to the nation’s workforce. Among his top priorities is resolving longstanding unpaid wage disputes, including those accumulated during the period of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, when dozens of workers faced suspended pay over compliance requirements.
The prime minister made clear that the administrative ball is now firmly in the court of senior public sector officials, who he has tasked with taking direct ownership of processing all outstanding claims. “When we said to you that they must process their back pay, we expect you to do so and to make sure that every single worker is paid,” Browne stated in his address. He went on to emphasize that funding for the payments is already secured and held in the national treasury, removing any financial justifications for continued hold-ups. “Do the research… provide the documentation, the money is in the treasury. Every single worker must be paid,” he added.
Browne’s hardline stance comes in response to persistent complaints from public sector workers across multiple departments, who have reported months-long delays in receiving owed back pay. Beyond the immediate financial issue, the prime minister warned that failing to address workers’ legitimate grievances erodes public trust in governmental institutions, stressing that all laborers deserve dignified, respectful treatment from their public sector employers. “Treat the workers with respect,” he said.
This order forms a core plank of the new administration’s broader labor agenda, which centers on raising wages, strengthening workplace protections, and improving overall working conditions for all workers across Antigua and Barbuda. Browne reaffirmed that securing full entitlements for the nation’s labor force will remain a top priority for his government as it works to deliver on the campaign commitments that secured its renewed mandate last month.
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Abaco residents angry over wiped power bills
Six years after Hurricane Dorian devastated large swathes of Abaco, leaving thousands of residents homeless and economically shattered, anger is boiling over over the Davis administration’s last-minute pre-general election decision to erase all outstanding electricity bills for residents of Grand Cay and Moore’s Island – while leaving similarly devastated mainland Abaco communities without any comparable relief.
Survivors across hard-hit mainland settlements including Marsh Harbour, Dundas Town, Spring City and Murphy Town have decried the selective relief as a transparent, insulting political gambit that ignores the ongoing suffering of thousands of Dorian survivors who have yet to recover from the 2019 storm.
Neulessa Major, a lifelong Marsh Harbour resident whose home suffered catastrophic damage during Dorian, described the unequal treatment as a slap in the face to all mainland Abaco residents still picking up the pieces. Her $55,000 home roof was completely destroyed, all her personal belongings were ruined by storm surge and wind, and she was unable to move back into her repaired property until 2022. Today, she says massive outstanding utility bills burden most families and business owners across central Abaco – none of whom were offered the debt forgiveness extended to the two smaller island communities.
“When I learned that only certain groups were getting their entire balances wiped clean, I was shocked,” Major said in an interview. “All of central Abaco was hit just as hard, with these enormous bills that people can’t possibly pay. Six years on, we still have people living in tents and temporary dome shelters. A lot of homes look finished from the street, but step inside and there aren’t even floor tiles. The government acts like everything is fine for us here, but it’s not.”
The controversial debt cancellation came two weeks ahead of the national general election, after Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis visited Grand Cay and publicly promised the relief to voters there. Government officials defended the move, framing it as a resolution to long-running billing disruptions triggered first by Hurricane Dorian and later by the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials noted that Grand Cay and Moore’s Island residents faced unique hardships including limited banking access, extended travel and business restrictions, and that accumulated debt accrued through circumstances outside consumers’ control. The government confirmed the outstanding balances would be covered through an offsetting agreement with Bahamas Power and Light.
But that explanation has done little to ease the anger among mainland Abaco residents, who point out they weathered the same storm and the same subsequent economic crisis, with many still struggling to rebuild. Major emphasized that many Marsh Harbour residents did not wait for government aid to begin rebuilding their homes and businesses, only to be saddled with crippling utility debt that the government has refused to address.
She also called out the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) for a separate recently revealed government-funded gift card program that saw small $300 gift certificates distributed to Abaco residents just ahead of the vote – a move she dismissed as insufficient and politically motivated. The Tribune previously confirmed that more than $200,000 in public funds was used for the gift certificates, which bear the signatures of PLP officials despite being a government initiative.
“A $300 gift certificate six years after we lost everything? What is that even supposed to cover?” Major asked. “A lot of people might celebrate a small handout right before an election, but that doesn’t fix what’s broken here. I was even offered $500 in cash at my door by campaign workers – I refused it. I don’t want a personal payout. I want the government to actually do something for our community.”
Lorane Burrows, a Dundas Town resident whose home was damaged in Dorian, shared Major’s fury, noting she was forced to pay outstanding water and sewerage bills even after her storm damage left her facing major financial strain. “They need to get out,” Burrows said. “This was a slap in the face to all of us. They’ve done nothing for Abaco, nothing for people like me who are still hurting. They failed us entirely.” Burrows confirmed she and all eight voting members of her household will not support the PLP in the upcoming election.
Rochelle Lightbourn, a 55-year-old Spring City resident who lost all her belongings when her rented home was destroyed in Dorian, argued the selective relief is a clear political calculation. “I think they’re doing this because they know they’re going to lose these districts, and they’re trying to buy back support,” she said. “It’s not going to work. I still haven’t even replaced everything I lost six years ago.”
Lottie Williams, a 64-year-old Spring City resident who lost the entire back section of her home in the storm and had to be rescued by emergency crews, said relief should have been extended to every Abaco resident impacted by Dorian. “Ninety-five percent of the homes in Spring City were destroyed,” she noted. “I understand those outer cays have challenges, but we fought for our lives here, we came home and rebuilt on our own, and we got zero help from this government. High electricity bills affect all of us. It’s just not fair to only write off bills for two small communities when we’re all struggling. That money should have been spread out to everyone who needed it.”
Many residents also recalled the slow, burdensome process of restoring power after the storm, noting that even long-term local residents were forced to produce extensive documentation just to reconnect service, despite the small community where most homeowners and occupants were already well-known to utility officials. For many, the compounding stress of Dorian’s destruction followed by the economic collapse of the COVID-19 pandemic left them unable to keep up with accumulated utility costs – a hardship the government has only chosen to address for a select few, weeks before voters head to the polls.
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Pornhub owner partially reopens access for UK users
Nearly eight months after blocking new user access to its adult platforms in the United Kingdom over age verification requirements, Cyprus-based adult content conglomerate Aylo — owner of major platforms including Pornhub, YouPorn and Redtube — announced a limited rollback of its restriction on Tuesday.
The company confirmed it has reopened access to Pornhub exclusively for eligible UK-based adult users who complete Apple’s new native age verification checks, a rollout limited to users with Apple iPhones and iPads that have been updated to the latest iOS 26.4 operating system.
Aylo framed Apple’s new tool as a groundbreaking development in digital safety for minors: the Cupertino-based tech giant has rolled out what it calls the world’s first device-integrated age verification system for UK users, which automatically applies strict default safety settings to accounts belonging to children, teens, and any adult users that have not completed formal age confirmation.
Aylo called the launch “a major first step toward a global solution that stands to better protect children everywhere.”
The original UK-wide block was implemented back in February, when Aylo pulled access citing its obligation to comply with the UK’s landmark Online Safety Act, which mandates that all pornographic platforms implement robust age checks to block underage users. Platforms that fail to comply face severe financial penalties.
From the start, however, Aylo has criticized the UK regulation, arguing that forcing compliant mainstream platforms to block access pushed users toward unregulated, anonymous dark web porn sites that lack any minor protection protocols. The company said earlier this year that the policy “has not achieved its goal of protecting minors” and merely diverted traffic to “darker, unregulated corners of the internet.”
This is not an isolated conflict between adult content operators and regional regulators. Aylo has enacted similar blocks on its platforms in France and multiple US states over identical age verification mandate disputes. At the European Union level, regulators opened a case in March accusing Pornhub and three other major adult platforms of violating EU digital safety rules by failing to block minor access to content, a violation that could result in billions of euros in fines for the companies.
Following Aylo’s Tuesday announcement, Britain’s independent media and digital regulator Ofcom said it will conduct a thorough review of the new access arrangement. The regulator emphasized that the Online Safety Act places full legal responsibility for blocking minor access to adult content on the platforms and applications themselves, and it will ensure all requirements are fully met before approving any permanent change to access rules.
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PPV operators will have to wait longer for 16% fare hike, says Vaz
Jamaica’s public passenger vehicle (PPV) operators, already grappling with skyrocketing fuel costs driven by ongoing Middle East conflict, will face an extended wait for a long-promised 16 percent fare adjustment, the country’s transport minister confirmed this week.
Addressing the House of Representatives Tuesday during debate on the 2026/27 national sectoral budget, Transport Minister Daryl Vaz acknowledged the mounting pressure facing the island’s public transport sector. The push for a fare increase began immediately after fuel prices started climbing in late February, when the United States and Israel launched a military strike on Iran that sent global energy markets into volatility. Even after a fragile ceasefire took effect on April 8, oil prices have maintained their upward trajectory, triggering cascading price increases across nearly all other goods and services in Jamaica’s import-dependent economy.
“I am aware that Jamaica’s public passenger vehicle sector is under extreme strain from both surging fuel costs and the long-outstanding 16 percent fare adjustment,” Vaz told lawmakers.
The minister noted that unforeseen disruptions have repeatedly derailed the government’s timeline for implementing the promised adjustment. “As I’ve said before, the 16 percent fare adjustment remains under active consideration, with close attention to its potential impact on overall national inflation. As the local saying goes, bad luck is worse than obeah – every time we approach a final decision, a hurricane or another unexpected crisis throws off our economic forecasts and plans,” Vaz explained. “But I can give a firm assurance: the commitment we made will be honored.”
Vaz outlined the severe financial pressures pushing the sector to the brink: fuel alone now makes up as much as 65 percent of a PPV operator’s monthly operating costs, on top of rising toll fees, climbing insurance premiums, and growing maintenance expenses. All of these combined, he acknowledged, are “threatening the sector’s very sustainability.”
To address the immediate crisis, Vaz confirmed the government is accelerating the groundwork for the 16 percent adjustment, including developing a coordinated public communication strategy to prepare commuters for the change. Alongside the planned fare hike, officials are exploring a suite of targeted relief measures, including cuts to mandatory insurance premiums, concessionary discounted toll rates for PPV operators, and stricter regulatory enforcement to crack down on unlicensed illegal transport operators that siphon revenue from licensed services.
For the long term, the government is advancing structural reforms to stabilize the sector. Key initiatives include updating national vehicle age rules to enable fleet modernization, offering financial incentives for operators to transition to electric and hybrid vehicles, expanding access to technical and business training for sector workers, and investing in upgraded public parking infrastructure across the island.
“These targeted interventions are designed to strike a careful balance between the pressing financial needs of operators and the affordability concerns of commuters,” Vaz said. “Our goal is to protect the long-term viability of a sector that is absolutely critical to Jamaica’s national mobility, domestic commerce, and overall economic resilience.”
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Forensic gap
A senior ballistics expert with nearly two decades of forensic experience has delivered key testimony in the high-profile murder trial of six current and former members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), revealing that most expended bullet cartridges recovered from the scene of a 2013 fatal shooting failed to match any of the firearms submitted for forensic analysis. The January 12, 2013 incident on Acadia Drive in St Andrew left three men — Matthew Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer — dead following what police reported as an armed shootout, with a fourth individual reportedly escaping the encounter. Now, more than a decade later, six JCF officers — Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch — stand trial on three counts of murder; Fullerton faces an additional charge of submitting a false statement to Jamaica’s Independent Commission of Investigations.
Testifying before a seven-member jury at the Home Circuit Court on Monday, the testifying police superintendent, who has 16 years of service with the JCF and 19 years of specialized experience in ballistics analysis, detailed the chain of evidence and his forensic findings. A total of 11 firearms, a large collection of expended bullet casings, and multiple bullet fragments were collected from the shooting scene and sent to Jamaica’s government-run forensic laboratory for testing. Among the evidence submitted were three 5.56-caliber JCF service rifles, three 9mm service pistols, two illegally held firearms that investigators claimed were recovered from the three deceased men, and dozens of unused and expended ammunition rounds recovered from the scene.
When processed through the laboratory’s computerized ballistics matching system, the vast majority of the expended cartridges recovered from the site failed to produce a positive match to any of the submitted firearms. The expert explained that a definitive ballistics match requires agreement on both class characteristics (general traits shared by weapons of the same model and caliber) and individual unique tool marks left by a specific weapon’s firing pin and barrel on each cartridge. For most of the casings in question, he said, there was insufficient matching of the unique individual marks to confirm a specific weapon fired the round.
While the superintendent confirmed the unmatched cartridges were consistent with ammunition fired by M16-style 5.56 rifles, the standard service weapon for JCF officers involved in the operation, he could not tie them to any specific weapon submitted for testing. He outlined multiple plausible explanations for the lack of a match: poor quality reproduction of tool marks on the cartridge casings, irregularities in the ammunition itself, wear or damage to the firing weapon, or the possibility that the actual weapon that fired the casings was never turned over to investigators for examination. Notably, the expert did confirm that spent casings matching the two illegal firearms seized from the scene were found at the site.
The testimony was not without procedural controversy. Attorney Hugh Wildman, who represents four of the six accused officers, raised a formal objection to prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke’s line of questioning regarding the firearms and cartridge evidence. Wildman argued that the evidence in question had never been formally tendered to the court, making it improper for the witness to testify about it. The objection stemmed from earlier testimony from the detective constable responsible for packaging the evidence, who admitted he could not definitively confirm that the items tested by the forensic lab were the same items presented in sealed packages to the court. The packages have never been opened in court, so their contents have never been formally entered into the official trial record. Despite Wildman’s objection, the presiding judge allowed Pyke to continue her questioning.
The trial is scheduled to resume proceedings on the following day, with more testimony expected from prosecution witnesses as the case unfolds. The legal team for the accused also includes Althea Grant-Coppin and John Jacobs.
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Stop interfering!
Political interference in Jamaica’s flagship multi-million dollar road infrastructure initiative is triggering costly project delays and rising financial risks, top government infrastructure officials have warned. The caution came from National Works Agency (NWA) Chief Executive Officer EG Hunter during a recent appearance before Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), where he outlined growing challenges plaguing the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme.
China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), the lead contractor heading SPARK which includes 27 local and international sub-contractors, formally documented the issue in correspondence shared with NWA. In the letter, CHEC detailed that repeated disruptions from political actors, ranging from sitting Members of Parliament to local partisan representatives, have held up segments of road projects for months at a time. Contractors frequently face demands to alter pre-approved road alignments and design plans, which were settled through earlier public consultation processes, forcing work stoppages while disputes are resolved.
Hunter emphasized that these unplanned changes do not just slow progress — they almost always lead to formal cost adjustment claims from the contractor, driving up public expenditure for the programme. To maintain legal clarity and project accountability, he noted that the Jamaican government, as the client, only maintains a formal working relationship with the lead contractor, not outside third parties seeking to alter project terms. He laid out a clear formal channel for concerns from elected representatives: all issues should first be directed to a constituency liaison officer, a role for which each MP was previously invited to nominate a representative. Unresolved concerns can then be escalated to project engineering staff, and ultimately to Hunter himself, who also serves as SPARK’s chief engineer.
When contacted for further comment, Minister of Works Robert Morgan confirmed the government has already taken formal action to address the growing problem, tabling a formal Ministry Paper in Parliament outlining binding guidelines to curb unregulated third-party interference. Morgan specifically called out newly elected Opposition Members of Parliament, who have increasingly pushed to alter pre-selected road routes that were finalized through public input, creating contractual conflict between the government and CHEC. Since contractors have signed fixed-price agreements to deliver specific pre-approved work, outside interference that changes project scope puts the government in a legally and financially vulnerable position, he explained.
Morgan pushed back against claims from some MPs that they were unaware of the new guidelines, noting that the document was properly presented to Parliament during sitting, and that MPs who missed the notification simply failed to pay attention to official business. He added that many elected officials have been directly engaging with contractors outside the approved governance framework, exposing the government to avoidable legal and financial risk.
The formal guidelines, titled *Guidelines governing the involvement of third parties in the implementation of road infrastructure projects*, outline clear boundaries for all external stakeholders — a group that includes MPs, councillors, community residents, civil society groups, private businesses, and non-prime contractors. The framework is designed to align all third-party engagement with Jamaican law, improve transparency, protect project integrity, and eliminate unauthorized political influence.
Under the new rules, third parties are permitted to participate in public sensitization meetings, represent constituent needs related to local infrastructure, and flag implementation challenges. MPs are also guaranteed formal notification of all contractual work taking place in their constituencies, with cross-constituency projects triggering notifications for all affected representatives. However, the rules explicitly prohibit third parties from participating in any stage of procurement or contract administration, including attempts to influence contract awards, which could constitute violations of procurement standards and criminal offenses under the Integrity Commission Act. All procurement decisions are reserved for official procuring entity leadership, accounting officers, the Public Procurement Committee, and Cabinet as appropriate. Third parties are also barred from managing project funds, signing contracts, approving payments, or overseeing project financial administration.
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Gov’t allocates roughly $250m for pre-hurricane mitigation works
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Facing a growing trend of more intense extreme weather events across the Caribbean, the Jamaican government has set aside $246 million in targeted funding to carry out pre-hurricane mitigation work across the island ahead of the 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The bulk of the planning and investment centers on clearing clogged drainage systems and complementary flood-reduction projects that officials say will cut potential damage when storms arrive.
In an official public statement released Tuesday, the responsible ministry outlined how the total budget will be distributed across administrative and national levels. On average, each of the island’s constituencies will receive approximately $2 million to deploy for drain clearing operations in high-risk, priority communities. This 2026 funding allocation matches the increased budget levels rolled out last year, a policy shift that boosted local parliamentary capacity to lead community-level mitigation work ahead of hurricane season, allowing for faster, more targeted action at the neighborhood level.
The remaining portion of the total $246 million budget will go to Jamaica’s National Works Agency, which will take on large-scale, specialized mitigation projects that exceed the scope of constituency-level drain clearing. These national projects include interventions in areas that require specialized technical expertise, heavy industrial construction equipment, or landscape modifications that cross local administrative boundaries.
Robert Nesta Morgan, the minister with oversight for public works, emphasized that the early, consistent funding reflects the current administration’s commitment to proactive disaster planning, practical resilience-building, and reducing the impact of storms on Jamaican communities. “We are acting before the storms come,” Morgan explained. “Last year, the Government increased the allocation to constituencies for pre-hurricane mitigation, and this year we have maintained that strengthened level of support. This will allow critical drain cleaning to continue in communities before the peak of the hurricane season.”
Morgan went on to note that Jamaica has already seen a clear increase in the intensity of rainfall events in recent years, putting unprecedented strain on existing drainage infrastructure, gullies, roads, bridges and other critical public assets. This pre-hurricane mitigation programme, he added, is just one part of a broader, government-wide resilience strategy that includes ongoing road repairs, bridge retrofitting, gully stabilization projects and improved inter-agency coordination to respond to weather events.
Under the terms of the current programme, local members of parliament will work in close consultation with municipal authorities and technical engineering teams to map out priority drainage sites and critical areas that require urgent clearing. All projects will prioritize communities that face the highest risk of flooding, repeated drain blockages, and inadequate stormwater runoff management.
While routine drain maintenance rarely draws major public attention, Morgan stressed that it is one of the most cost-effective, impactful measures the government can take to cut flood risk, protect private and public property, and limit storm damage during periods of extreme rainfall. “We cannot prevent hurricanes, but we can reduce the damage they cause by preparing properly,” he added.
Beyond government-led infrastructure work, the administration is calling on Jamaican residents to support the mitigation effort by changing harmful waste disposal habits. Officials warned that dumping of household garbage, bulky waste, construction debris and other discarded materials in drains, gullies and natural waterways remains one of the leading causes of preventable flooding during heavy downpours.
Morgan closed by reaffirming that the government will continue collaborating with parliamentarians, municipal corporations, the National Works Agency and other key stakeholders to ensure all mitigation work is targeted to the highest-need areas and completed well ahead of the 2026 hurricane season peak.
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World Court receives evidence Venezuela consistently recognised1899 boundary settlement
On Monday, May 4, 2026, Guyana launched the merits phase of its long-running border dispute case at the United Nations’ highest judicial body, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), by presenting what it calls irrefutable, decades of documentary proof that Venezuela accepted the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award establishing the two nations’ land boundary for more than six decades, without raising a single formal objection.
Leading Guyana’s opening arguments before the court, Nilufer Oral, Director of the Centre of International Law at the National University of Singapore and a prominent international law expert, laid out a comprehensive case that contradicts Venezuela’s current claims challenging the award’s legal validity. Oral emphasized that the historical record is unequivocal: from the moment the 1899 ruling was issued 127 years ago, all the way through 1962, Venezuelan authorities consistently acknowledged, abided by, and enforced the boundary set out in the award.
Oral pointed out that despite Venezuela’s current denials, historical records confirm the country was fully aware of any potential legal grounds to contest the award at the time of its passage. Far from opposing the outcome, top Venezuelan officials repeatedly publicly stated their satisfaction with the ruling, even framing it as a strategic victory that granted Venezuela control over the most strategically valuable portion of the contested territory: the mouth of the Orinoco River.
To back these claims, Oral presented the ICJ judges with a wide range of authenticated primary sources, including official Venezuelan government maps, formal diplomatic correspondence, and public statements by high-ranking Venezuelan leaders. One key example she cited was a 1929 boundary protocol between Brazil and Venezuela, which explicitly recognized the 1899 award’s demarcation of the tripoint where the borders of Brazil, Venezuela, and what was then British Guiana converge.
Oral also highlighted a specific incident that underscores Venezuela’s historic commitment to the award: when one official boundary marker along the border was destroyed by natural forces, Venezuelan authorities demanded the marker be replaced at the exact location specified in the 1899 ruling. She emphasized that Venezuela has long insisted the award be implemented precisely to its terms, rejecting even minor adjustments to the agreed boundary.
Further, Oral referenced Venezuela’s 1948 Organic Federal Territorial Law, which formally defines the eastern boundary of the country’s Delta Amacuro Federal Territory as “the border between Venezuela and Great Britain” — the exact border established by the 1899 award. She also displayed an official map Venezuela itself submitted to the United Nations that clearly draws the Guyana-Venezuela border in line with the 1899 demarcation.
Oral questioned the credibility of Venezuela’s current argument that it was forced into the 1900–1905 joint boundary demarcation process with British Guiana against its will. During that five-year process, Venezuelan surveyors and commissioners worked alongside British counterparts to demarcate the 825-kilometer border. Throughout the entire undertaking, Oral noted, Venezuelan officials never recorded a single objection, reservation, or protest regarding the alignment laid out in the 1899 award. In fact, Venezuelan representatives to the joint commission, who reported directly to Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, carried out their work with meticulous attention to detail and full commitment to upholding the terms of the 1899 ruling when the commission’s work concluded.
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Greene Predicts By-Election in All Saints East & St. Luke as Pressure Mounts on Pringle
In a fiery address to supporters at a joint Labour Day rally hosted by the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (AT&LU) and the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) this Monday, ABLP Chairman E.P. Chet Greene has made a bold prediction: a by-election will be called in the swing constituency of All Saints East & St. Luke within six months, driven by mounting internal unrest within the opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) that he claims will force UPP leader Jamale Pringle to step down from his parliamentary seat.
Greene doubled down on his claim that the opposition bloc is entering a period of accelerating collapse, telling assembled rally attendees that internal factions within the UPP are growing increasingly vocal in their opposition to Pringle’s leadership. This growing pressure, he argued, will leave the UPP leader with no choice but to resign his parliamentary seat, triggering a fresh contest for the constituency that has remained a key battleground between the two major parties since the April 30 general election.
In that general election, ABLP’s candidate Lamin “Lammy” Newton lost the All Saints East & St. Luke seat by only a narrow margin. Greene framed a potential by-election as a critical second chance for Newton, telling supporters he expects the ABLP candidate to secure victory in a fresh vote. This win, he added, would help the ruling party complete what he described as a “clean sweep” of parliamentary seats across the nation.
Beyond his prediction of an imminent by-election, Greene used the high-profile Labour Day platform to launch a pointed critique of the UPP’s recent performance as the official opposition. He argued that the party has failed entirely to fulfill its core democratic role as a check on ruling party power, pointing to high-profile internal disagreements over key policy issues including the national government’s COVID-19 public health response and its cruise ship tourism regulations as evidence of the UPP’s ineffectiveness. “None of us in this country can honestly claim that the UPP has been an effective opposition,” Greene stated.
Notably, even amid his sharp criticism of the current opposition, Greene stopped short of rejecting the role of opposing political voices in a functional democracy. He emphasized that robust democratic governance requires a credible, effective opposition, and rejected any push to eliminate dissenting political views from national discourse.
Greene also used the rally to outline a new transparency and engagement pledge for the ruling ABLP, announcing that all elected ABLP parliamentary representatives will now be required to host quarterly public town hall meetings in their respective constituencies. The policy, he explained, is designed to keep elected officials directly connected to the constituents they represent, reinforcing the government’s commitment to democratic accountability. “That’s the balance we strike for democracy: constant engagement with the people,” Greene said.
As of Tuesday, the UPP has not issued any public response to Greene’s claims and predictions, leaving open questions about the actual level of internal pressure facing Pringle and the party’s future in the constituency.